IDW To Release 'Next Generation' Comics Next Year

IDW Publishing will bring Star Trek back to comic book format in January as part of a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Newsarama spoke with IDW Editor in Chief Chris Ryall, who said that several years of publishing CSI comics had given his company a good relationship with CBS, who now holds the Star Trek television license. "It's been years since there was ongoing Trek comics," he said, promising to feature characters "that have been known and loved for decades, not introducing new characters like with Enterprise."

At present Ryall intends to focus on Next Generation stories to celebrate twenty years of the series, but there are plans for original series comics as well. "We certainly don't want to go too strong from the start - I'm wary of having a glut of books out there all at once - from an overall company standpoint as well as a Trek standpoint," Ryall explained.

Publishing will kick off with a 6-issue miniseries, The Space Between (no reference intended to the Dave Matthews Band song), by writer David Tischman and artist Casey Malone."It's set sometime during the Enterprise-D's first year," explained Ryall, who joked that he hoped Trek fans wouldn't notice if he placed Picard on the wrong Enterprise before assuring Newsarama that "both Tischman and editor Dan Taylor are huge, huge Trek guys. You should hear the conversations coming from Dan's office - it's the kind of talk that, if it happened on a date, the girl [would] end up joining the convent."

Each of the books in the miniseries will be able to be read alone, added Ryall, who hoped to adapt the upcoming eleventh Star Trek feature film as well. "The things I love about Trek are the character interplay, and also the old stories that took hard science ideas and took them in interesting directions, along with the parallels to our own world. So we're doing 'episodic comics' here," he said. "As far as art goes, I wanted a style that would work with the characters, the world that already exists, and an ability to handle any crazy idea...an artist who didn't have so many personal tics to his style that the book became style over substance."

Comic News International, which like Newsarama has graphics from the new comics, quoted Ryall as saying, "I couldnít be happier to be shepherding Star Trek comics in the 21st century."